Warning Signs

I felt cold. Why was it so cold in my room? And when I opened my eyes, I realized with a start that I wasn’t in my room. I was in a room, but it didn’t look familiar. It was very dark and I could hardly see anything. My hand immediately attempted to reach out for something to grasp and that’s when I realized that my feet and hands were bound to a bed that was not my own. I tugged hard on the ropes to no avail, they were too tight.

A familiar voice filled my eardrums. “Tonksy, are you awake?”

I tried to speak but there was a gag in my mouth. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? The gag was removed and I squinted in the darkness to see Bellatrix Lestrange standing over me, staring into my eyes. I swear every time I saw the woman her face was even more devoid of emotion.

The room lit up. I strained my neck to glance around. Bellatrix had been sitting on a chair beside the bed. It looked like we were in a room at the Three Broomsticks, a famous pub in Hogsmeade. I was indeed tied to a soft bed, spread-eagled but still fully clothed. If I wasn’t, I would have grown scared, but I knew what I was here for either way. Bellatrix was going to torture me for whatever information I could give her, but I was trained not to break.

“So the wittle Tonksy-Wonksy is awake,” she murmured, trailing sharp fingernails along my cheek. I shivered with repulsion at the touch.

“That’s good, Tonksy, I want you to cringe whenever I touch you. The more disgusted you are the more likely you are to give me useful information,” she said, and I caught a glint of steel out of the corner of my eye as she began to file her fingernails with a knife.

“You thought you could outsmart me, you stupid wench. Thought you could play a little game of cat and mouse and get away with it, didn’t you?” She stood so suddenly that I couldn’t help but gasp as she leapt onto the bed, straddling my waist with her knees and bending down, her lips inches from my own.

“You thought wrong, Tonksy. Very wrong,” she murmured, the knife glinting in the light as she raised it and ran it along my cheek. I winced as I felt something warm trickle down my neck and that’s when I realized she had cut hard enough to draw blood.

And then I felt something wet and I groaned as Bellatrix licked the blood off of my cheek and then planted tender kisses along the sensitive skin of my neck. I grew nervous, knowing I didn’t have time for Bellatrix’s sick little games. If I just had my wand, where in bloody hell was my wand?!

“What are you hiding, wittle Tonksy? Hmm?” Her voice was confident as she wrapped her hand around my throat, squeezing hard. I gasped and felt my lungs strain to obtain breath as she cut off air going into my windpipe. “I want you to tell me everything you know, or you will deeply suffer the consequences. I can inflict pain that you have never ever experienced, and I will, without any remorse. I will torture you until you break, you confident little witch.”

Her hand released my throat and I gasped and shuddered as I was finally able to breathe. After taking a few deep gulps of fresh oxygen I laid my head back on the dank pillows, staring hard into Bellatrix’s evil eyes. “I will tell you nothing, you vile, filthy bitch!” I spat out.

My head throbbed as she backhanded me with all her strength (which was surprisingly a lot for a woman of her age) across the face. The distinct taste of copper filled my mouth as my gums bled from the harshness of the slap. I knew this was just the beginning, but I wouldn’t give in, I couldn’t. My loyalties lied with the Order, with Hermione.

“You will tell me everything I want to know!” She screamed, slapping my other cheek.

I spit out blood to the side of the pillow and stubbornly glared up into her murderous eyes. “Torture me all you want, Lestrange. I will not crack, I’ll never tell you anything.”

Bellatrix’s eye began to twitch. “Let’s see just how much pain you can tolerate, shall we?” She raised the knife before my eyes with a sinister grin on her lips.

With surprisingly gentle motions, she undid the knot on my tie and slid it out of the collar of my shirt. I grunted as she impatiently ripped open my button-up shirt, and bit my lip so as not to chuckle as I heard the sounds of buttons clattering along the floor. Goosebumps immediately came upon my shivering skin. The air was chilly inside of the small room.

I closed my eyes and my lower lip trembled as the blade of the knife trailed in-between my breasts. She ran her fingers through my short hair and I felt her warm breath on my ear as she leaned in close to me, snickering as she heard my breathing speed up with anticipation.

“This is going to hurt, Tonksy…” she whispered, sucking on my earlobe and at the same time digging the tip of the knife into the side of my breast. I bit my lip to muffle my scream of pain as the knife traced circular patterns towards my nipple. To my relief she left the nipple alone and started carving odd designs on the other side of my breast. I felt warm blood trickling down my skin onto the tattered sheets of the dingy bed below me. The pain was immense and it took all of my strength not to cry out as she began her torturous tirade.

I was whimpering by the time the cold steel of the blade departed from my bloody skin. She leaned back, staring down at me with a satisfied smile on my face as she surveyed my mutilated breast.

“Oh, I’m sowwy,” she giggled maniacally. “Did I hurt the wittle Tonksy-Wonksy? Well, don’t worry… There is still more to come… Unless you be a good girl and answer my first question…”

I gritted my teeth, the cold air of the room making the pain mind-blowing. It was as if the very air was against me, opening the cuts wider and making them sting worse than they would in a warm environment.

“Go to hell,” I muttered.

She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, I like your spunk, Tonksy. You are one very brave woman, I will give you that… But when I am through with you there will be nothing left of your most valued organs but blood and bone, unless you make the intelligent choice and choose to co-operate!” she hissed, licking the blood from the tip of the knife like a leech on open skin.

And then she was digging her fingers into the largest cut she had made nearest my nipple. The pain was too excruciating to ignore and I must admit that my scream was loud enough to wake the dead.

She pulled her fingers out and licked them clean. “I like the taste of your blood, Tonksy. So fine and thick… I want more… But if I take too much you may not be alive for long. Seems you’ve lost quite a bit already.”

She was right, my head was throbbing and I was getting weak. My throat felt dry and hoarse and I was finding it hard to speak and concentrate. She suddenly left the room. I craned my neck and glanced around for something, anything that I could use to help me escape. But I was useless without a wand.

I closed my eyes and within moments Bellatrix had returned, but I refused to open my eyes. My wounds were painful and I feared that I was going to crack soon if she resumed her carving, which I knew she would.

I felt a damp cloth dabbing at my wounds, cleaning and disinfecting them. “There, there, my wittle baby… Is that better?” she cooed, so baby-like and innocent that it made me want to puke. This woman was far from innocent, she was a bloody snake! I wondered if help was coming, if I’d ever see the light of day… or see Hermione’s smiling face. But then I remembered the words I had written in my farewell note to her and I knew she was more than likely madder than bloody hell at me right now.

Bellatrix lie beside me on the bed, tracing patterns on my naval with her fingernail. I shivered, feeling her hot breath dampening my neck. She continued to clean the wounds with the wet cloth, purring into my ear and kissing the sensitive skin there.

“Tonks…” she whispered, for once using my real name.

I opened my eyes and turned my face so that our lips were nearly touching. “What?”

She kissed me, a fleeting touch that both disgusted and aroused me at the same time. “Perhaps I should use a different approach…”

My heart hammered in my chest and I said nothing as she tossed the cloth onto the end table beside the bed and used both hands to unfasten the belt buckle preventing my baggy slacks from falling off.

Her free hand cupped my uninjured breast, rolling it around in her palm. Her fingernail flicked my nipple, which was already erect due to the temperature of the room. I bit my lip so as not to gasp as I felt her lips capture the nipple and gently suck on it. Despite how much I hated Bellatrix, how much I loathed her touch, my body was betraying me and before I knew it my back arched off of the bed and my hands instinctively clenched and began pulling on the bonds that bound me.

“Oh, yes… You like that don’t you? Well, don’t worry, Tonks. I’ll have you screaming out my name by the end of the night, begging for me to give you the release you are so going to desire while I pleasure you,” she said, and I groaned when I heard the sound of my pants unzipping.

Her hands pushed at my pants until I felt them twist around my bound ankles. She used the knife to slice open my plain black panties and I barely heard them hit the floor as she once again began to suckle noisily on my nipple, making it warm and moist underneath her lips. I did not want this to happen, I did not want Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort’s most prized Death Eater, to make love to me in such ways that would leave me wanting the release that I knew she would deny me continuously until I cracked.

Bellatrix discarded the rest of my clothes and proceeded to sexually torment me. She quickly learned my weak points, judging from my strong reactions as she explored every inch of my body with her teeth and tongue. When her lips found my clit and sucked hard, I was so wound up at that point that she cruelly stopped as soon as she started, leaving me on the brink of the climax I so craved.

Again and again she did this, never once bringing me to orgasm. On and on it went into the late hours of morning until I could see the sun shining through the dirty window of the inn. It was worse than the physical pain she had inflicted upon my breast and she knew it. But what I knew is that she was growing impatient. She had expected me to give in within a few denied orgasms, but I was stronger than she expected and this infuriated her.

Finally, she licked her lips clean of my fluid with a sneer on her lips. “I’m growing tired of this, Auror,” she murmured, her fingers sliding along my sweat-soaked skin. “Don’t you want me to make you cum? Don’t you want me to relieve the pressure that I have built in your body? You want it to subside, don‘t you?”

I whimpered, my lower lip trembling. I don’t know how I was even in a sane state of mind at this stage of her wicked game, but somehow I was still strong. “What I want is a bloody nap!” I snarled, crying out in pain as she twisted my nipple so hard that it threatened to bleed.

“TALK, DAMN YOU!” She screamed, once again placing her thumb over my clit and rubbing furiously now.

I gasped, bucking my hips, undulating beneath her finger as I once again felt myself on the edge of a glorious climax. She pulled her hand away and I whimpered, just as I had done at the end of enduring this madness throughout what was the longest night of my entire life.

I was crying now, tears of fury streaming down my face. “Go to hell, Bellatrix! I’ll never betray my friends! I’ll never betray the Order and I will never betray the woman I love just because you think you are stronger than me! Well, guess what! You’re not! You’re scum and I can’t wait to see the look of dumbstruck horror on your face when I FUCKING KILL YOU!”

Her eyes nearly bulged out of her skull as she grabbed me by the throat with both hands and began to strangle me, shaking me so hard that I was bouncing up and down on the dirty mattress. “TALK! TELL ME WHAT I NEED TO KNOW!”

She released me and I choked on air, coughing so hard I feared my lungs would burst. I shook my head and she climbed off of the mattress. “When I come back you will deeply regret the choices you have made this night, Nymphadora Tonks. Mark my words.”

And with that, she fled from the room, slamming the door haughtily behind her retreating form.

I stared at the ceiling for a moment and then my eyes caught the knife she had used to cut me up last night. I blinked, pulling on my bonds for a moment to no avail. And then I wondered how I could have been so painfully stupid.

“Accio, knife!”

It flew right into my trembling hand. Thank Merlin for charms that did not require wands.

I turned the knife and started sawing at the rope as hard as humanly possible. Within moments, one hand was free. I sat up and angrily freed myself from the bonds. I wasted no time and used what little strength I had left to gather my clothes, hastily dressing and praying that she would not return to find me on the loose.

Uncaring that my shirt was split open and I looked like absolute hell, I moved swiftly to the window and sighed with happiness to the fact that there was a roof just outside it. I opened the window and climbed onto the roof, glancing below me and grinning like a fool as I realized if I jumped I would not be harmed from the fall. For once this night fortune had smiled upon me.

I leapt to the ground and fell forward onto my face. I was weak with exhaustion and I feared I would pass out if I got up. But I knew I had to, Bellatrix would soon discover that I had escaped and be after me within seconds.

My arms trembled as I raised myself up off of the hard ground. I stood on shaky legs and began my descent back to Hogwarts. I don’t know how I managed to reach the castle. The last thing I remember is collapsing just in front of the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. After that, darkness overcame me and I was aware of nothing but a dreamless sleep for a very long time.